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In a happy confluence of events this year, I've found myself finishing up the final edits to my novel manuscript, with a shiny new membership in the Capital City Writers Association and a ticket to my first-ever experience at the Write on the Red Cedar conference.

I've begun to learn the craft of querying and how to find agents who specialize in pig-rat-butterflies or whatever this thing is that I have spawned.

Actually, I've gained clarity on exactly what I love in my favorite books--deep character development, beautiful language, exciting plot twists, subversion of tropes and cultural assumptions, natural settings, folklore, ecstatic experiences, romance, and examination of primal themes using fresh-cut lenses. I've worked hard over the past few years to artfully blend all these qualities into one living, hot-blooded monstrosity that has a distinctive voice, personality, and story to tell.

It's the most wonderful time of the year! Welcome Baby Jesus, Baby New Year, Disney Princesses, and Volupta! The holidays are marvelous in our "panreligious" home.

I love the rhythm of the big holidays from October through December, when we celebrate the past, the present, and the future in their turns. We remember past family on Day of the Dead. We share our presence with living family on Thanksgiving. And in the season of Advent, we cozy up the house with cashmere throws, pop cookies in the oven, and light a fire of hope for joys to come.

Christmas songs and stories about the infant Savior fill us with the wonder that attends new life and the promise of redemption--an end to suffering and the beginning of joys that we can yet only imagine. When the Gospel writers crafted their birth narratives to frame Jesus as divine, they mined the rich mythology of divine paternity, pure maternity, and salvation through miraculous birth showcased in my favorite story, the mother of al…